One of the world’s largest logistics technology platform providers is targeting the UK for growth in the wake of the coronavirus after seeing some 6,000 customers and transport carriers using its services in the last few years, with strong uptake in the last six months.

Nick Ghia, UK general manager at C.H.Robinson, says: “We’re reinventing the way the world does logistics and increasing UK market share is integral to our future growth strategy.

The coronavirus has been a lesson to supply chains across the world and the UK is no exception. The need for greater resilience, visibility and efficiencies in the face of adversity has put digitised supply at the centre of business planning. Through our artificial intelligence driven technology platform, we have experienced significant interest and engagement so far this year and therefore we believe we are well placed to win market share, including the UK in new normal world post COVID-19.”

C.H. Robinson has established itself as major supply chain force globally. The company manages £16bn of freight annually, has 119,000 customers and deals with 79,000 road, shipping, air and rail freight providers. It has 49 offices in Europe, including four operations in the UK where its focus is on FMCG, household goods, the steel and paper industries.

Added Ghia: “Big data and digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics, are critical success factors and these technologies will now differentiate UK based manufacturers, retailers and suppliers in terms of their overall competitiveness, whether that be through reducing costs, enhancing the customer experience, increasing visibility in demands and capital, and opening up new commercial opportunities. We want British-based businesses to be major beneficiaries of the technology revolution that will accelerate logistics transformation over coming years.

C.H. Robinson’s cloud-based platform, Navisphere, connects supply chains across the UK and globally. It does everything from generating strategic data to shape decision making and providing global visibility across all types of transportation; to enabling 24-hour live tracking and plugging inefficiency gaps to enhance freight flows and reduce costs. Navisphere has been developed to allow full integration with customers’ own systems and through various functions and application programming interface (API) technology it can pull in data from carriers, customers and other external sources, such as weather forecasts and traffic reports, to provide business intelligence and information on a scale never seen before which all helps to improve savings, reliability and visibility.

Concludes Ghia: “We’re reimagining logistics. Continuous innovation in the supply chain is crucial in keeping up with the constantly changing way trade is happening and the ever-higher expectations of the end customers, not to mention being ready for any eventuality in the future in the wake of coronavirus. There is a need to make possible, what has been previously impossible.”